Israel’s combat tactics failing on media front

Attempts to convey a balanced picture of the unfolding events in Israel’s war with Iran and its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, seem doomed to failure. Israel lost the hearts and minds of the mainstream media almost immediately after 7 October, before the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had even managed to fire off one shot in retaliation. Currently, Israel faces the wrath of social media podcasters who wield enormous influence, commanding many millions of sycophantic followers. The biggest podcasters dwarf the diminishing footprint of mainstream media.

We have entered the era of stand-up comedians acting as political commentators, with the likes of Joe Rogan and Dave Smith, alongside several other comics, providing platforms for lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists, revisionists, and Holocaust deniers alike. These media clowns have openly rejected expertise, particularly in portraying the intricacies of history and historical facts. Using all the dubious techniques of classical revisionism, following in the footsteps of the infamous and discredited David Irving, they denigrate the very experts whose shoulders they should be standing on. Spinning fantastical yarns, they relentlessly pick away at the accepted meta-narrative, introducing red herrings, false equivalences, alternative facts, and endless strawmen.

This comical circus is what a knowledgeable and erudite Douglas Murray faced in the Joe Rogan studios. While acting like a tag team, Rogan and Smith dismissed the need for “expertise” in journalism and history. Yet, hypocritically, these two jesters would never dream of undergoing complex surgery or boarding a flight without the prerequisite expert at the helm. Nevertheless, they value amateur enthusiasm coupled with a sinister political agenda over expertise. Their aversion to experts and factual analysis stems from their deeply flawed perception of government failures to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conspiracies abound regarding the origins of the pandemic in Wuhan. Due to the less-than-deft way the pandemic was handled, Rogan and Smith feel justified in diminishing the value of all experts and all facts. Having discredited subject experts, they peddle their drivel and exploit the abundant ignorance of their enormous social media following. Whenever their ignorance is exposed, they shape-shift and revert to their comedian personas, pretending to ask “honest” questions. Repeating ill-informed questions ad infinitum transforms these questions into statements, statements that cumulatively distort facts. These clickbait opportunists don’t seek truth; they aim to sow seeds of doubt and tear down the structures that define our civilisation.

The swing to social media leaves Israel in a highly precarious position regarding its right to a fair hearing in the court of world opinion. Israel lacks answers in combating the fictions passed off as revisionism peddled by the likes of Joe Rogan and Candice Owens. Rogan, Owens, and Smith et al., who have shaped public opinion against Israel, have become the useful idiots for antisemitic narratives, and their role in amplifying misinformation calls for exposure.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas crossed the border intending to murder as many Jews as possible and capture hostages. Hamas understood that the murder of hundreds of Jews, combined with hostage-taking, would trigger massive retaliation, resulting in inevitable death and destruction among the Gaza civilian population. In an unprecedented act of cynicism, Hamas strategically decided to sacrifice its civilians to win the media war. Repeated social media pictures of utter devastation deal a fatal blow to the Israeli cause. Modern warfare has never been fought this way before, and Hamas’s access to social media and the mainstream press, where they have expertly controlled the narrative, has left Israel increasingly isolated with few allies. As a military necessity, Israel must allocate intellectual and material resources to combat the media hegemony that Hamas enjoys. Hybrid-warfare doctrine manuals should include a significant section on “winning the media war”.

The IDF is conducting a highly complex asymmetrical war against Hamas, the likes of which the world hasn’t witnessed before. Israel has performed admirably on the battlefield in an almost impossible urban environment filled with civilians. It has significantly contributed to the doctrine of urban warfare. However, this war is different from past wars. Egypt, in an extraordinary manner, has closed the borders with Gaza, preventing Gaza’s civilians from fleeing the battlefield. Hamas actively discourages and prevents civilians from leaving the battle ground. In an act unprecedented in ancient or modern warfare, Hamas uses its civilian population as ammunition to be expended in winning the media war. The Israelis have depicted Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields, but missed a trick in failing to convey the truth that Hamas uses civilians as expendable assets to win a media war. By not identifying the depth of Hamas’s depravity, Israel has handed it a propaganda victory.

The IDF has historically struggled to implement combined-arms warfare, often over-relying on its air force to deliver operational and tactical victories. In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, mechanised infantry and artillery were the IDF’s orphan components in favour of an air force that the Egyptians neutralised with missiles. The invasion of South Lebanon in 2006, using armour without the necessary support of infantry and artillery, was another lesson for the IDF in paying more than lip service to combined-arms warfare. So too, in the current hybrid-warfare conflict, there’s a need for a strong combined-arms approach in ridding Hamas from Gaza. Fortunately, when it comes to the pure military doctrine regarding urban warfare, the IDF has perfected its fighting machine to unprecedented levels of combined-arms usage. Winning over the media and world opinion has become a crucial part of modern hybrid warfare and should be included as an essential component of combined-arms warfare. Unfortunately, the Israelis seem to have no answer when it comes to combating Hamas in the propaganda war.

• Dr David Brock Katz is a research fellow at Stellenbosch University in the faculty of military science. He has published three books and numerous academic articles dealing with aspects of South African military history and military doctrine.